


You Know

by Lynniethebeegirl



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 18:21:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynniethebeegirl/pseuds/Lynniethebeegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the ending that I originally wrote for 'Forever Might Be Closer Than We Think". Laura dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know

When Laura begins to die it’s been nearly five hundred years. Her human body is worn out, decades of radiation seeping into her bones, ash coating her lungs. 

Carmilla takes her north, to the destroyed remains of Ottowa, just some concrete slabs and abandoned parking garages. They travel a few days west, until they get home.

JP has kept the house standing through the centuries, through a combination of magic and perseverance. Carmilla lowers Laura to the floor in what used to be the living room, they gray walls and gray floors blending with the gray skies and gray trees outside. Laura coughs, skin gray, lips gray, eyes faded from green to a dull ashy color.

“Laura? How’s it going? Do you want water, food?” Carmilla tries to get Laura into a sitting position, but Laura gasps in pain, and lies limply in her arms, eyes wandering. 

“Sleep. I just want to sleep.” Laura whispers, and Carmilla takes the blankets out of her backpack, and curls up behind Laura, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

******

The beds are gone, the walls coated in a thin film of ash. The linoleum table, now rickety and streaked with radiation, is still there, along with some chairs. Carmilla cleans, wiping away dust, making it the way she remembers it.

It can never be the way she remembers it.

As Laura gradually gets worse Carmilla finds herself waiting for an opening door, a voice, something. If Laf was here they would give Laura something for the pain, or save her altogether. Perry would tuck her into bed, bring her soup, hold her hand when the pain got bad. Danny…Danny would have been there. She would have carried Laura up flights of stairs when Carmilla was on the verge of fainting from exhaustion. She would have stayed with Laura when Carmilla had to sleep, or go get blood. 

Sometimes Carmilla misses Danny most of all. She had none of the baggage, none of the selfishness that Carmilla has. She was free to give herself entirely to the people she loved. Carmilla had hated her for it, and envied her for it.

Laura lies on the patch of floor strewn with blankets, shaking. The tremors, the difficulty breathing, the pain, it wouldn’t be long now. Carmilla lies beside her, trying to keep her warm, trying to hold her there a little longer.

“Hey.”

“Hey."

The voices are ragged, strained, the weight of what was happening pressing down on both of them.

“Carm, I’m scared.”

“Laura…”

“No, I’m so scared. It hurts. It hurts so much, and I don’t want…I don’t want to die”

“Laura.” Carmilla kisses Laura, and holds her tight. She’s thin in Carmilla’s arms, skeletal, and she’s shaking, not from the radiation poisoning, but from fear. Carmilla doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to comfort her. She just holds on tight.

“Carm?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“I know.”

***

Laura’s asleep the last few hours, lying in Carmilla’s lap. Her breathing slows, and her face pales.

“I love you.” 

Laura’s breathing stops at sunrise, as the first gray shadows appear on the walls. Carmilla sits for a while as the last of Laura’s body heat seeps into the chilly air. She’s gone. She’s gone.

Carmilla digs the grave in the backyard, digs it deep, so nothing can get to Laura. She digs it next to the stone, worn smooth with the centuries. Noah Lawrence. Laf had carved the stone with lab equipment. Danny had dug the hole, small but deep.

Deep like the one Carmilla lies Laura in. Curled on her side, wrapped in the softest blanket Carmilla can find. She looks at peace. Like she hasn’t just live five centuries. Seen the world fall. Seen the deaths of billions of people.

Carmilla kisses her forehead before tucking the shroud in around her face, protecting her from the soil that she pushes into the hole.

She leaves that night, hanging Laura’s backpack by the door. Laura is gone. Carmilla is alone.

****

A woman wanders the earth, wanders through the wreckage of what used to be humanity.


End file.
